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Monday, October 31, 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Mom, Blair, and I dropped in on our friends Jake and Jennifer at Southern Belle Farm when we were in Atlanta earlier this month. I didn't give them a bit of notice, but Jake and Jennifer were so nice to show us around their amazing place.

The farm is a beautiful setting to spend a fall day!

They have great weekend special events throughout the fall plus they have a corn maize, racing pigs, bouncy horses, rubber duck races, a corn cannon, a train, pedal carts on a dirt track, a big bouncy pillow, and more!

They have a huge air pillow for the most fun time jumping!

I thought the water pump duck race “track” was so neat!

Southern Belle Farm hosts field trips to tell kids all about farming. Belle and her ladies hang out on the farm and give the kids a milking demonstration.

The old dairy barn on the farm is the venue for the milking demonstrations.

Belle hanging out in the shade.

There is a wagon stage under the barn to use for events. And check out that big ice cream churn!

Mimi serves up the yummiest food on the weekends!

Blair got to experience Southern Belle Farm with the experts – Jake and Jennifer’s daughter and her friend! At first when Blair got on the air pillow, she was really timid. It didn't take her long to warm up, and she left begging to "go back and jump again!"

Next we headed down to Oinker Stadium. Jake put held a special pig race for us!

There they come!!

And into the water!

They also have a pumpkin patch and a cotton patch. Many kids don’t know anything about where cotton or milk comes from, so we are thankful that they get to visit Southern Belle Farm to get a little peek!

Blair picked out a pumpkin to take home.

And of course she had plenty of help from the resident expert!

If you’re anywhere near central Georgia, head to McDonough to Southern Belle Farm. You’ll have a blast – promise!

Friday, October 28, 2011

I got a text from Brad the other night at work. I figured it would be a picture of Blair or something he needed to ask me. If only it had been just that.

This is our cotton picker. Was our cotton picker. Our only cotton picker.

The message in the text: “We had a bad day…. I’m home.”

I think that qualifies as a bad day. Day four of harvest in the first really good cotton and the dang picker burns up. My husband would say that’s par for his course.

I didn’t know whether to cry or hit something, call Brad or leave him alone. You know how men are; they don’t want to talk about stuff like this. We women want to know every detail of what happened.

The visit to the site the next day was yet another learning experience for me. First thing one does if there is a fire is dump the cotton in the basket and move away from it. He did that.

Cotton in the foreground was in the basket, and the basket is still open (and now on the ground) to the left of the picker.

Three guys fighting, three fire extinguishers exhausted, and the fire burned on. Brad eventually had to jump off of the picker because it was too hot. He said that he knew when the beam holding the picker heads bent that it was over. It was probably over way before that, but this cotton picker was his baby.

And it was the only one I’ve ever known. I’ve spent quite some time in that buddy seat. It was really hard to go out there the next day to see it.

So we had a bad day. What now? We move on. We pray. We harvest. We get it done. :)

We’re thankful that no one was hurt. And we realize that fire devastates homes, and this is nowhere near that. It’s just a day on the farm, and we just have to get busy with our options. They aren’t necessarily simple options, but we have some: finding another picker (they do happen to be scarce this time of year), getting others to harvest for us, or a mixture of both.

We’re thankful that we have some choices – and some good farmer neighbors willing to help us out in a crunch. We’re praying that God leads us to get this crop in whatever way He intended.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Well, it’s harvest time! That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s raining. Oh, wait… isn’t that the good news? Since we’ve have had almost no rain over the last nine months, rain is good, right? Right? I don’t know about you, but I’m confused. ;)

Truth is, this is really not what you want your window to look like when you’re looking at defoliated cotton – cotton ready to be picked.

Because then you also see this:

These bolls are not so pretty anymore.

The rain affects cotton quality. And with too much rain, there is wait time for it to dry out before harvest. And there’s wind, which is a whole other issue.

We love to see the barn “parking lot” look like this, but the timing is not always ours.

That’s the way farming goes. We think we need rain; we might not get it. We want it to be dry; we get rain. The thing is that God’s timing is right, and we have to trust that. The end.

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Child of God, wife of a farmer, mom to a miracle, RN; picture taker, animal lover, Spanish speaker, world traveler, former high school teacher. I love food, knitting, blogging, and living in a small town. I write about a little of all of the above!

Brad is my husband of 6 years and the reason I live across the branch. From a very young age he knew he'd be a farmer. God gave him the love and the talent -- and he's the best looking and the best dressed farmer I know! He's funny, creative, and he's the most wonderful husband and father. He's the one that can make Blair light up like no other.

Blair is four! We are so blessed to have her. She was born very sick, but God gave her strength and brought her through it. She has hearing loss called Auditory Neuropathy and wears hearing aids. She also has chronic lung disease, but you wouldn't know by seeing her! She is the busiest, funniest little thing who keeps us laughing and on our toes. I thank God for her every day.

Leighton is the happy roly poly who joined our family this summer. He has been a joy and is as sweet as his big sister! He's such a blessing, and we're so thankful for him!